


Imagine Your Dessert Platter

by nevermindirah



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Restaurant, Fluff, M/M, Meet-Cute, Slice of Life, what other relevant fic tags are food puns?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-03
Updated: 2016-03-03
Packaged: 2018-05-24 11:40:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,236
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6152496
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nevermindirah/pseuds/nevermindirah
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>MY SISTER JUST GOT HIT ON BY THE CHEF AT THE RESTAURANT WE’RE AT VIA THE WAITRESS I’M DYING: Imagine your OTP</p>
<p>Sam’s the sister, Steve’s the chef, Bucky’s the waitress</p>
<p>Featuring a special guest from Sam’s past</p>
            </blockquote>





	Imagine Your Dessert Platter

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by [this completely true story I read on tumblr](http://nevermindirah.tumblr.com/post/138958432739/cersei-the-truth-bombardier-hebavsreason), and my love for Sam and Steve and food.

Sam let out a groan, an honest to God groan.

Leila glared at him. "What the hell? This is a nice restaurant."

Sam managed to grin while keeping his mouth closed around his bite of steak. "Leila, I don't care how many years I've been out of the service, enjoying a steak never gets old."

"I'm so glad you're enjoying yourself," she said, deadpan.

"Looks like you're enjoying the view," Sam said, with a point of his fork in the general direction of a server with long, curly dark hair.

"That girl's like, nineteen. Please."

Sam smirked around another bite of steak.

"I mean, yes," Leila said, low. "But nineteen! I have standards. And I'm not dating right now."

"And why is that again?" Sam asked, but Leila's attention had wandered to another server with dark hair. Their server. Who was hovering just over Sam's shoulder.

"Excuse me," the server said. He sounded winded, as if he'd jogged across the restaurant to refill their nearly-full water glasses. "How is everything?"

Sam, who was cutting lovingly into his steak, managed to say, "wonderful, thank you," and even look up to meet their server's eyes briefly before returning to his plate.

Leila, who had gotten a Cobb salad that was good but not holding that much of her interest, was in a better position to notice their server's continued hovering. She looked up at him pointedly.

"I'm sorry," he said, dropping his gaze to Sam. "Pardon me for asking a really inappropriate question, but sir, are you single?"

"Uh," Sam said, lowering his steak, "what?"

"What was your name again?" Leila asked smoothly.

"James," he said, extending his hand. "My friends call me Bucky."

"Leila. So, Bucky," Leila said as she shook his hand. "Give us the pitch. You've got good taste, Sam here is the best you'll meet."

"Oh! I'm, um, it's not me. I'm sorry, this is exactly as weird as I thought it would be."

Leila couldn't help a little laugh. "Hey, in for a medallion, in for a T-bone, right?"

"Right," the server, Bucky, said around a surprised grin. Leila appreciated the sparkle-in-his-eye way he was looking at her all of a sudden, and she held his gaze. But she didn't hit on servers when they're at work, and anyway she wasn't dating right now.

Sam had bit into another delicious piece of perfectly grilled filet just as Bucky seemed to remember what he was there for. "I'm sorry, again. What I'm interrupting your meal to say," and he turned to face Sam, "is that the chef thinks you're gorgeous and is interested in getting to know you, if you're open to that."

Sam found his mouth felt especially full all of a sudden. Full of what continued to be a singularly well-seasoned steak.

"Look, you're eating, I want you to enjoy your food, and Steve would want you to enjoy his steak --" and Leila enjoyed the looks on both of their faces as each in turn realized what he'd said.

"Uh, I'll come back with dessert menus in a little while. You two enjoy."

Leila did enjoy watching as he fled. At least this one was age-appropriate.

"And how's your chicken?" Sam said to draw her back.

"I don't know, seemed pretty brave to me," she said.

"Fuck you," he said, punctuated with a poke at his asparagus with his fork.

"Now is that any way to talk in your new man's restaurant?"

"Presumably the man opened a restaurant so that people would eat," he shot back. "I am going to do just that. If you're not going to eat," and he focused back on his plate to slice back into his steak, "how about you tell me more about what's going on with the Mayor's office."

"You want me to talk more so that you can chew, huh?"

Sam's only answer was to put a hand over his heart and tilt his head back as he chewed this latest morsel with exaggerated pleasure.

"Fine," Leila said. She picked up her napkin and refolded it, smoothed it back down. "So I ran into the same douche from the Mayor's team at this fundraiser two nights ago, he's trying to charm me, look down my cleavage, look at my phone. I'm having none of it." She speared a chunk of avocado. "Paula keeps grinning at me across the room, in this gorgeous blue dress, looking like so much more fun than this fool. But I managed to stand there talking to him until the Mayor's finance director was walking right past us, and I bust out with 'I'm gonna find those emails, and I'm gonna print the story, if you help me we can negotiate what day the story runs' -- and damn if that finance guy didn't look right at me with a cartoonish look of terror before he ran out of the room. This is too easy."

By the end of her story, all that remained of Leila's salad was a little pile of lettuce and tomatoes, and much the same with the dignity of various politicos across the city.

Sam ran his last forkful of root vegetable mash through the steak juice with a happy sigh.

"Don't look now," Leila said, "but I think dessert menus are on their way."

"You know, I just might put myself on that dessert menu if it means I get another shot at the entrees later." Sam paused his fork in midair, let a smirk cross his face. "If he's cute."

Sam had swallowed, but just barely, by the time their server returned, large menus in hand.

"Hello again," Bucky said. "Before I ask if you enjoyed your meal, let me say a few words about today's dessert special." He handed them dessert menus as he continued, "Our chef is preparing for your table a sampling of every dessert on our menu, free of charge. Your selection for dessert is to accept his phone number, or alternately pretend this never happened and enjoy your dessert sampler in peace." He took a deep breath. "And now that I've put that out there and embarrassed myself and others, how was your meal?"

Leila smiled, shark-like, but Sam beat her to the first comment.

"It was delicious, thank you," Sam said. "You know," and a grin spread slowly across his face, "I'd like to thank the chef personally, if he wouldn't mind."

Bucky accepted the menu that Sam handed back to him without a glance. "Certainly, sir. He'll be out as soon as he can step away from the grill."

He turned to Leila and opened his mouth as if to ask her something, but instead bit down on his lip. His eyes were bright. Her smile sharpened. "Sam and I, we got good taste. Good food, handsome men, preferably handsome men with excellent manners who are generous with gifts of chocolate."

Bucky let out a chuckle and accepted her menu with a nod before walking away from their table.

"Ahem," Sam said once it became clear that his glare wasn't enough to draw Leila's eye from their server's back.

"What?" she said.

"I'm the one getting hit on right now."

She reached across the table and pinched his cheek. "Yes you sure are, Sammy sweetheart."

Sam swatted her hand away, grinning. "So what do you think? Should I go out with him?"

"Depends on if he's cute, right? You know how much I love casual sex, you know exactly what I'd do." Sam raised his hand in a vague pointing gesture, and dropped it right back down to his water glass when Leila raised her eyebrows. "I think you work really hard and take care of your business and have so much love to give to the right person. You know I won't judge you for playing around, but I will, Samuel Thomas Wilson, judge the hell out of anyone who thinks they're worthy of you."

Sam grinned around his water glass. "Why you gotta be so smart all the time, huh?"

"It's a gift," she said with a shrug, then inclined her head in the general direction over his shoulder. "On your six."

"Shh!" Sam said, and Leila laughed at him. Sam had squared his shoulders and was resolutely looking at Leila, but the twitch in his neck gave away that he wanted to look behind him.

"Excuse me sir, on your left here," said a deep, velvety voice. Sam saw Leila's jaw drop just a smidge before he turned to his left and laid eyes on the second coming of his remarkably delicious steak.

"Hi," the man said to Sam. He was tall, broad, built like a ranch hand, with thick-rimmed hipster glasses and a bright blue hearing aid in his left ear. "I'm Steve."

Sam took his offered hand, gave it a slow, firm shake. "Sam." It's all he could get out. A smile spread across his face like butter on toast.

Leila would have been stuck there watching them stare at each other if it weren't for their server returning with a generous platter of --

"Gifts of chocolate for the two of you," Bucky said, setting the platter on a service stand he'd pulled up next to their table. He clapped Steve on the back and gave Leila a lingering look before retreating back toward the kitchen.

The chef, Steve, barely seemed to register his server's presence. He was still looking at Sam. His crisp white dress shirt looked like it was about to burst apart at the seams, from the muscles and from the breath he was evidently holding.

Leila had half a mind to let the fools stare at each other, but not at the cost of melted whipped cream. She broke the spell with a "this looks delicious" as she reached for the small plate of chocolate cheesecake. There was a whipped cream heart on top of it. She huffed out a little laugh.

"It's good to meet you, Steve," Sam finally said. "Tell us about these desserts?"

"Oh!" Steve's smile at Sam broadened before he pulled his attention to the tray of sweets. "Sure -- your friend here has our double-chocolate cheesecake. There are little dollops of fudge in there. What's your name, ma'am?" he asked Leila, offering his hand to shake.

"Leila, hi," she said. She had to put her fork down so she could shook his hand, her first bite of cheesecake untouched on the tines.

"Thanks for letting me crash your lunch," Steve told her as she picked her fork back up. "I know this is a little, uh, unorthodox."

She paused her fork in midair to say, "You're making it worth my while." She raised her fork slightly in a cheers before finally eating that first bite. She let her eyes flutter closed in enjoyment.

"Good, huh?" Steve said. "I'm particularly proud of that recipe. Dessert isn't my specialty, my business partner Natasha is the pastry chef, but she let me help on that one. This one, though," and he pointed to a layered confection that looked a little like a S'more, "is really something. It's called bird's milk cake. Sponge cake topped with the best marshmallow fluff you've ever had and a chocolate glaze. We've also got the mint chocolate mousse, raspberry and hazelnut truffles, and German chocolate cake."

Sam was having a hard time looking at the selection when this handsome nerd was talking with such obvious passion. Steve had an ease about him when he was talking about food.

Steve caught Sam looking and his smile shifted into more of a smirk. "So what do you think?"

"This all looks so good," Sam said, holding Steve's gaze. "I gotta ask though, why me?"

Wow did Steve have a set of eyelashes, Sam noticed as Steve looked down. "You've got a vibe about you. Something in how you carry yourself. Seems like you know what you're about. If that doesn't sound weird."

Sam laughed wide at that. "Oh that's how it is? Ok," and he reached for the plate of bird's milk cake, "I'll bite. What exactly is on the menu here?"

"I'd like to get to know you. See if we make each other happy," Steve said with a carefully light tone.

Leila was going out of her mind, between the cheesecake and the look on Sam's face and the cocktail napkin with Bucky's number she found under her plate. She'd tell Sam about that last thing another time, after she'd decided whether to text that number. She got the feeling her conversations with Sam would be dominated by another topic for a good while.

"I'd like that," Sam told Steve. "I'd say you could make me plenty happy by keeping me in steaks like the one I had earlier, but I don't want to give you the wrong idea."

Steve bit his lip around a grin. "Yeah?"

"Yeah," Sam said. "You've got a vibe about you, too."

As Steve fished his phone out of his pocket, Sam caught Leila looking at him. She inclined her head at Steve with an approving smile. Then she made an exaggerated kissy face at her forkful of cheesecake just in time for the curly-haired server walk by. Leila thought she saw the girl roll her eyes.

Sam was chuckling when Steve handed him his phone. A little jolt ran through him as Steve's hand brushed against his.


End file.
